Ok, so the morning we were due to depart I got up at 7.00 am, to find the whole of Canberra white with frost. “Hmm, great day to be starting a trip to the seaside!” I thought. Our cars had to be defrosted, and then several hours of buggering about were needed, not for any particular reason, but its traditional for us to do so. Eventually, Lee-Anne got across to her mother’s house, swapped cars with her, (more on this later,) .At home, I sat alone, wondering where the hell she had got to. I got a phone call; “Help, I’m at Belconnen Shell servo, I’ve put gas in the car and I’ve left my purse at home!”

Ah huh..

After dropping her purse over, I left her to go on to collect Sowon, Bethy’s mate, who we’d invited down for the week. Poor old Sowon must have been wondering where the hell we’d got to, as we’d told her to expect us an hour earlier.

We got all the girls things into the cars, bags and bags of girls things, and we set off.

Lee-Anne had Bethy, Sowon, and Millie for company, and I had Barnum to annoy me. We agreed that Lee-Anne should lead as she knows the way. In any case I would have only buggered off over the horizon and got lost if I were in the lead. The journey was uneventful, apart from one stage, when an old fart in a campervan clogged up the whole road to Cooma, and declined to pull over to let people past. He built up a tail of about twenty cars. By pulling out into my path every time I moved out Lee-Anne prevented me from doing my normal stunt of suicidally overtaking everyone, getting in front of the miscreant and jamming my brakes on. She knows me too well.

Eventually, and fortunately for my blood pressure, we hit a dual carriageway bit and we all overtook him. I wasn’t alone in giving him the “wanker” salute as I passed.

We didn’t do our usual stop off at Cooma, as we were all dead keen to hit our destination. We carried on, down the “Snowy Mountain Highway”, with snow in evidence on the verges around us. At “Pipers Lookout” we stopped for a wee break, and for Barnum to demonstrate his total lack of road sense. Coming back from the lavvy Bethy and Sowon both declared; “We hate pit toilets they stink!” The toilets at  “Piper’s lookout” are basically a toilet seat and a long drop below, very eco.

 

Another hour or so saw us at Bega, home of cheese, or at least one of the cheese towns here abouts. I looked at the directions I’d printed out, and declared we should go left. Lee-Anne disagreed. We argued for a bit, and, out of spite, I let her win. So we turned right, and continued on for many K. After a while I decided to pull her over,  to demand we turned around and went back my way, which I knew was the right way.

Lee-Anne said; “haven’t you noticed us doing the happy dance in the car? I was right, it’s ten K up the road.” I slunk away with my tail between my legs, realising if we’d gone my way it would have added another thirty K to the trip. Bugger.

Eventually we got to Bermagui, our destination, and it didn’t take us long to find our digs, surprisingly. The place we’d rented was up in the hills outside of town, on the very edge of the rainforest. In fact the garden was unreclaimed rainforest, beautiful! David, the owner, lives in half of the cabin, and an enclosed veranda separates the two parts of the accommodation. He met us outside, and informed us;  “you’ll get used to the noise.” The noise? Oh yes the noise. The noise was that of several hundred bellbirds, chiming in the settling dusk (Click here to hear), with an accompaniment of King parrots and other avian artistes. I was gobsmacked to say the least.

The cabin itself was basic, clean and comfortable, and had just about all us four (six) needed. We threw our respective bags into the rooms, and settled in.

Then Bethy points out we have a pit toilet, albeit one without the Piper’s lookout’s long drop. A short drop khazi then.  I was banned from eating curry for duration of our stay.

 

We took a drive into town, had a short stroll around the harbour, allowed the dogs to stretch their legs, and did a bit of shopping in the local supermarket. A quick diversion to a hippy “knick-knack” shop in the town also provided us with a supply of incense sticks, to be lit in the lavvy each morning by the first user.

 We then drove to the chippy. To the wrong chippy in fact. We’d spotted one earlier, it looked good, but we missed the turning for it and yet ended up at a chippy nonetheless. This particular chippy was owned by the local fishermen’s co-op, and by buggery do they give you healthy portions. Good chips too, and the girls inform me the fish is first class. (their vegeburgers were, at best, average, but beggars can’t be choosers.)

Zane Grey placed Bermagui on the global scene by establishing it as the birthplace of game fishing in the 1930s. Apparently it’s a great place for marlin and other “big game” fishing. Buggered if I care though.

 

On one of the walls on the chippy is an autographed picture of the Big Yin himself, Billy Connolly. This was the mark of his appreciation and thanks to the fishermen and townsfolk for their help and cooperation when making the film “The man who sued god.” It was shot here, and the town, harbour and fishing fleet feature large in it. (When we got back I “acquired” a copy of the movie J )

We ate outside and I soon found out the gulls hereabouts were as aggressive as any I’ve ever encountered; Hitchcock would have signed them up on the spot.

When we got back to the digs, we found we had a guest, a magpie (it may have been more than one.) From here on in it came to the veranda whenever we were about, and demanded feeding. He, or they, was hand tame, and so we fed it loads of really (un)healthy stuff. It also found the leftover dog food in the bowls palatable too. Luckily Barnum didn’t see him eating out of his bowl,  he hates magpies as they have a habit of attacking him. Another, cute but curious little bird also joined us at feeding times, but this one was more shy, or not as friendly, as the magpies. Bethy correctly identified it as a “Butcher Bird”.

That night we left a big dollop of birdseed out, in the hope of attracting a few more, or different, birds down onto the veranda.

It worked.

The next morning there were thirty or more King parrots there eating away. Kings are not all that common in Canberra, and to see a huge flock of them was rather lovely.

In the early morning light I explored the locality, while everyone else was getting their acts together. Overhead a sea-eagle sea-eagled and soared. I chased it all over the bloody shop trying to get a picture of it. I failed.

The locality consisted of four more cabins, and a bloody huge rain forest, and that was it. So seeing as it was – 5 degrees, I returned back to the warmth of our lounge.

As I got back I spotted a lyrebird in the bottom of the garden, by god they are beautiful birds. This bird actually visited us most mornings, but always at a time when there was insufficient light to get a good photo of it. The thoughtless bastard.

We drove into Bermagui, and decided to spend the day getting better acquainted with the town. I must say at this point that Bermagui is now No 1 on my list of “Places to move to when kid moves out, and we finally have some money in the bank”. We did a more comprehensive tour of the town, including a visit to the “Blue Pool”. This is an open-air swimming pool, semi man-made, semi natural, carved into the cliffs of the town. It’s fed by the waves, and looks a lovely spot to swim if you’re that way inclined. But as the temperature was only just into double figures, we decided against it.

We hit the co-op chippy again, great chips again, this time with fab calamari and other exotic fishy delights, (or so they tell me, the vegeburger didn’t taste any better the second time around.) Then we walked off some of the excess calories by strolling around the harbour. Pelicans topped most lampposts, and a seal romped in the bay, so it was all rather wonderful..

In the evening we went picking shells on Bermagui beach. Lovely, huge, exotic shells were just about everywhere you looked, so we gathered enough to fill a few carrier bags.

 

Slight digression;

I remember, and possibly my mother still has, a book from my childhood. In this a couple of stereotypical, “Janet and John,” middle-class, wanky, kids who wouldn’t have lasted five seconds in the area I grew up in, went to the beach and collected shells. The ones we found were far better. So yah-sucks-boo to you Janet and John, it may have taken me forty plus years but I’ve got you beat, you smug little shits.

 

Where was I? Oh yes, Bethy, when younger, used to call stuff collected off the beach “treasure”, ever so sweet eh? Luckily there’s still, even at twelve years old, enough of that childhood innocence left for her to still enjoy treasure collecting.  Our fish tank has a never-ending supply of things to decorate it now.

On the beach we also found a dead puffer fish, covered in spikes, and highly poisonous. Barnum tried to eat it, and got a size nine sandal up the arse for his troubles.

 

 

 

The next day the girls decided to go fishing.

I’ve always said that, despite all my years of vegetarianism, that I’d eat fish if I took the responsibility of catching, killing, and cleaning it myself. The big flaw in this assertion is that I don’t really have any reason to catch and kill it if I don’t want to, do I? So I “um’d and ah’d” about it, and eventually decided I wouldn’t indulge. (God, I’m a soft old bastard.)  The girls rented a boat, and I watched them set off, still kicking myself for not going, while simultaneously reminding myself that I would have been the only person likely to catch anything, and that I really didn’t want to kill any bloody fish.

 

I took the dogs off to a lovely four-mile long surfing beach called “Camel Rock beach.” It just goes to show how many beaches there are locally, and how wimpy Aussie surfers are, that I had the place to myself.  You may remember this as the beach I visited, when the girls went horse riding, on our last “eventful” holiday. Camel Rock still looks sod all like a camel. It was a great stomp over the rocky headland, spoiled only by Barnum’s total lack of sense when it comes to cliff edges. I reached the end, and looked over the huge freshwater Wallaga lake, which empties into the sea here. In the distance was Mt Dromedary, my objective for tomorrow!

I strolled back, climbed into a couple of empty bays, great soft sandy, picturesque bays which would probably be just as devoid of people in the middle of summer, as they have no proper access. Just as I hit the beach again another sea eagle skimmed past and I managed to get some better than average shots of it.

When I arrived back at the landing quay, I saw Bethy and Sowon, up to their waists in the water, pushing the boat back up stream. “Oh dear, this looks interesting” I thought. But it wasn’t really, they had just hit a sandbank due to the girls bumping their gums rather than watching for obstacles. Sowon’s dramatic re-entry into the boat would have scored 9.7 in gymnastics.

They told me they had had a fine time. The waters were so crystal clear they could see their baited hooks on the riverbed bottom. This had been very handy as by diligence and careful rod work, they had managed to keep the bait out of the mouths of the puffer fish that swam in shoals around it. They had managed to hook one puffer fish, but fortunately it got away. The presence of the puffer fish had kept any other fish which may have been interested in the bait safe from getting caught.

That night we cooked at home, but not fish and chips for a change.

In the morning, we left the dogs at home, after walking them, the girls headed off horse riding, and I went for a hike. I’d got a route description from the tourist information place at Bermagui, and was going to climb Mt. Dromedary. I found the start without too much hassle, and a sign read “Tilba-Tilba walking trail, summit 5 hrs return.” No worries eh? And so I set off.

The walking was gently uphill, but was bloody relentless, so it soon got tedious. However as it was through untouched rainforest, with massive gums, vines, tree ferns, and other flora staples of these regions, it was very picturesque. Unfortunately the dense canopy of the trees blocked out the sun to a large degree, which made that photographing the many vividly coloured little birds, which I startled into flight at every bend, impossible. Bugger.

After a hour and three quarters I reached the summit marker. There was no view however, as the summit is covered in rainforest, surprise, surprise. All in all, a bit of a bloody pointless exercise then. Though gaps in the trees I could just about pick out the beaches, lakes and headlands I’d walked along the day before, but getting a photo of them was impossible. So I headed down fuming to myself. To be fair the summit is a sacred place for the local aboriginal tribes, so it’s only fair its left untouched. But a bloody viewpoint wouldn’t be too much interference, would it?

When I reached the end, I decided to take a picture of the sign, as it gave an estimate of five hours return, and I’d knocked it out in three. There were a couple of people stacking wood next to the sign, and I asked them to move so I could get an image. They looked up with beaming smiles, and a look of good-humoured vacuousness. Oh shit, HIPPYS!! I eventually got them to understand that I needed them to move. So they did, while maintaining that smiling benevolent look, the look that says “I took one too many hits of the brown acid in the 60’s”. The look which only the fully fucked hippy can give.

A couple of yards down the lane I came across a gate with a sign that stated

Tilba Views Eco Cottage.

Holistic vibrational massage

Equine acupuncture.

I couldn’t help but wet myself laughing.

When I got back girls told me they had a great ride, with wonderful scenic views, and I told them I’d had a bloody knackering walk, with sod all views, and so we collected the dogs and went for a beach walk. On the beach I found a huge spiral shell, with a hermit crab (dead) inside it. This did not compensate for a long hard tedious walk up a sodding mountain with no views though.

I slept like a brick that night.

 

 

The next day we did a touristy thing and visited Mumbulla Creek Waterfall. This spot was reached by a 40 k dirt road drive through a national park. Dirt roads? Great fun! Let’s go sideways!

Well at least I enjoyed the drive.

The falls themselves were beautiful, and as there’s been some rain (at last!) in the area, they had enough water in them to be well worth the trip. The girls explored, and I shot off numerous pictures. Unfortunately I didn’t have my camera ready when Sowown fell into the falls, which was a shame.

On the way back the girls fell asleep, totally crashed out in the back of the car, with their mouths hanging open. So, being a gentleman, I took a couple of pictures of them.

 

 

 

The last full day dawned. We took the dogs and had a stroll on Camel Rock beach; much to my surprise there was a surfer on there. One.

We then drove 89 k into Bateman’s Bay, which was the nearest place with a cinema showing the movie the girls has set their hearts on seeing this holiday; “Fantastic Four Shag the Silver Surfer,” or some such nonsense. We stopped off at the Innes Boatshed Chippy, which is compulsory if you’re in Bateman’s bay, and, for a change, the girls had fish and chips. I strolled into the shopping area and at a bakery bought what the Aussies call a vegetarian pasty, and what the Cornish call “what the hell is that supposed to be”. Still it was edible, or at least the gulls didn’t refuse their share.

 On the jetty I got some rather amusing pictures of a pelican doing yoga.

We dropped the girls at the cinema, and left them to it. We drove to the hamlet of Lilli Pilli, somewhere we have often stayed in this area, and did a nice little coastal walk, just out of nostalgia for holidays past.

When we caught up with them again, the girls give us their review of the movie; “it’s ok.”

I don’t know if “it’s ok” is supposed to mean “well worth you driving us on a 180 kilometre round trip to see it. Thank you very much for that,” or not.

I, and I still don’t know how I managed this, somehow talked Lee-Anne into letting me visit not one, but two, cheese factories on the route back.  Not only that, but she let me buy an embarrassing amount of cheese too.

We stopped off at, and walked the length of, Bermagui beach on our return, as we were leaving the dogs home alone for the evening, and wanted them shagged out. Seeing as this was their third decent length walk of the day, we suspected they’d not kick up too much fuss about being left.

Sowon’s mum had, very kindly, given us the cash to pay for a decent meal out. We’d spotted a restaurant on the sea front, which had a great looking menu. Great looking inasmuch as it had a vegetarian option. One. Which is one more than we spotted anywhere else. We got into our best bib and tucker, drove into town, and got a parking spot right outside the place we’d fancied. This parking spot may or may not have been available due to the fact that the restaurant was closed for the evening.

Fortunately, just down the road was a restaurant that was doing a lively trade.

 So lively was it in fact, that it was full. But one of the very harassed looking waitress, there were two of them doing the work of six, kindly gave us seats in an area at the rear. As is my luck, this area had no view of the sunset, or of the sea even, but we were grateful enough to have a place to eat to not complain. I was more grateful to be told that, even though there was nothing vege on the menu, the chef would do me a “special”. I was extremely grateful to find out my special (“al dente” risotto, with fresh herbs, roast pumpkin, spinach, shitake mushrooms, and parmesan savings) was incredibly bloody lovely.

So we ate, and chatted, looked back at our stay, had a glass of local wine, and rounded off the holiday with a toast to lovely Bermagui.

The next morning Lee-Anne went off at 6.30 am, as she had to be back in Canberra in time to take her mother to hospital for a cataract operation. I left the two girls to rouse themselves, and drove down to the beach to get some sunrise pictures. These were only marred by the bloody clouds that got in the way, preventing me from getting the sun rising out of the water. Bollocks.

When I got back to the cabin we packed up the car, mainly with cheese. I went to explain to David that we’d had a great time, we loved his place, and we were very sorry for singeing the pouf which we’d left too close to the fire. He gave me the expected; “no worries mate,” which was kind of him. He also gave us his mobile number, and told me if I contacted him direct next time, he’d give us a discount on our stay. Sweet! (We’d booked this break through an online agency.)

Lee-Anne rung me a couple of times. Once to tell em the highway cops were out in force, so drive s-l-o-w-l-y, then to tell me that it was snowing in the mountains, then to tell me blizzards were forecast and to get my arse in gear and not hang about. Hang about?

Approaching the mountains it was indeed snowing, and I saw my first “snowbow” a rainbow, but…. oh work it out yourself. We got through the mountains without too much fuss, there was only a light dusting on the ground. And although I was hyper-vigilant I didn’t see a single cop all the way home either.

We reunited with Lee-Anne at home, the girls played for a while and then we took Sowon home. Her mother, very kind person that she is, had cooked us a huge vegetarian noodle feast, which she packed up for us to eat at home. A very pleasant end to our trip.

 

So a holiday with a difference. The difference?

·        Even though we took two cars, neither of them blew up or broke down.

·        Despite my best efforts we didn’t get lost on the way there.

·        The weather, although sub zero each morning, was t-shirt hot by 10.00 am.

·        Despite living next door to the owner, we never fell out with him.

·        Every chippy we ate at was cheap and high quality. (despite the absence  of taste in their vegeburgers.)

·        Barnum didn’t eat the puffer fish requiring a trip to a vet and hence a second mortgage.

·        Barnum didn’t  fall off a cliff, requiring me to bury him in the sand.

·        None of the female fishing folk got a hook in them

·        I didn’t die of heatstroke or a broken ankle on Mt Dromedary.

·        The horse riding stables the girls used were fantastic fun, and no one fell off and broke an arm.

·        After girls had watched their movie they didn’t wander off into the sunset and get lost  “by accident”.

·        When Sowon fell in the falls she didn’t fracture her skull.

·        We found somewhere to have a fantastic meal on our last night, despite the town being shut, and without having to drive the 89 k back to Bateman’s bay.

·        I neither skidded the car into a snowdrift, nor got booked for speeding, on the way home.

·        Sowon’s parents hadn’t moved home when we returned with her.

 

All rather odd really, I must have done something wrong.